Mo Perry

Writer, editor, health journalist, theater artist. Curiouser and curiouser.

[Jacob Mauren @jacob_mauren]

The Twin Cities DSA will demand to be taken seriously and then make the dissolution of approximately 40% of Minnesota a part of their official platform. Add in a 32 hour work week, $20 min wage, and abolishment of prisons and you have the perfect LARP platform.

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

Reading the codified demands in the recently released political platform of the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is quite instructive. Coming soon to a Democratic primary near you! https://t.co/LTrGaNkCvB

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Silence can help us most to recognize the voice of God, since it fosters attention and recollection. Freed from the noise of a thousand voices, we come to recognize that some voices deceive our desires, others buy us without nourishing us, and still others speak out of self-interest. In silence, we understand that ideologies pass away, while truth remains. https://t.co/lbaMqHx1cJ

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

Is the implication here that states that manage to call elections in less than a week aren’t counting every vote?

[Governor Newsom Press Office @GovPressOffice]

Why do Republicans hate that California counts every vote?

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

Bravo @katrosenfield, best review of Obsession I’ve read so far.

[The Free Press @TheFP]

Feminists think the horror film 'Obsession' is about the toxicity of the Nice Guy; the manosphere argues that it proves women are crazy. But it’s much deeper and better than that, argues Kat Rosenfield. https://t.co/bqmm2VFOKh

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

I've relinquished my home to dog hair. If I want to sit down in an outfit and not rise with it covered in hair, I have to go outside and sit on a deck chair. This is just how it is now. I've reached the acceptance phase.

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

@Hopingflower Hear, hear

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

Treatments like cranio-cervical surgery don't threaten the legitimacy of the illness, and crucially, they don't suggest any agency on the part of those who have it.

It's the suggestion of agency that many find deeply offensive, even intolerable, equating it with fault.

[Alan Levinovitz @AlanLevinovitz]

that's exactly my position in this prior piece for WIRED, in which I cover exploitative and unscientific "treatments" for autism, ranging from dietary interventions to seriously dangerous things like chelation and bleach enemas

one of the points I keep trying to make in the LC space, though, is that the mind-body stuff simply DOES NOT get the same treatment as, say, cranio-cervical surgeries (!!!!) as an intervention for ME/CFS, or hEDS (which one ME/CFS advocate, Edwards, refers to as "being a bit bendy," I'd love to see him write an op-ed defending that! lol)

anyways, that's a wildly dangerous surgery, surely as dangerous as a mind-body therapy, but at best the skepticism is gentle, there isn't a mass movement trying to destroy the exploitative neurosurgeons offering these extremely expensive surgeries, or hounding the patients who get them, or who claim improvements from them

and that, I argue, is because such surgeries (and such recovery stories) don't threaten the legitimacy of the illness

https://t.co/08kjhcJ3XI

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

@annbauerwriter I bet I can guess who. There are some mighty good, free-thinking eggs, even now.

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

Had lunch with a friend yesterday who asked how I can stand knowing that everyone in the theater community is talking about me after my recent commentary in the Strib. I told her I’ve been steadily expanding my nervous system’s capacity to handle it for years.

[Luke Burgis @lukeburgis]

One of the key messages in the first half of my book, The One and the Ninety-Nine, is that learning how to regulate your nervous system is one of the surest bulwark's against social contagion. There is a highly affective dimension to this kind of contagion which is either learned—or not learned—in the family.

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

@annbauerwriter I don't think you're on the radar of most TC theater folks! I'm glad you liked it. :)

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

Found this refreshingly nuanced, informative, humane, and constructive: https://t.co/TDzXKrDlRb

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

It’s still not exactly easy. But I no longer feel lightly panicked at the idea of people misperceiving me and my intentions or booting me from their club. It’s a nice place to be, highly recommended.

[Hans Fiene 🦬 @HansFiene]

Sorry, but there's no way you're building a billion mile long ship for sixteen dollars

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

@wildcat_of @sunsopeningband More preliminary:
Picard & McEwen study mitochondrial allostatic load and conclude that acute and chronic stressors influence mitochondrial biology, with chronic stress leading to molecular and functional recalibrations in mitochondria. https://t.co/MB04bETpCV

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

@wildcat_of @sunsopeningband A 3-minute mental stress task in healthy young men with no risk factors caused endothelium-dependent vasodilation to be reduced by half for about 45 minutes. Authors conclude "mental stress induces prolonged endothelial dysfunction." https://t.co/dLDV4adcb6

[Dr Sanil Rege FRANZCP | MRCPsych @sanilrege]

What does it mean when the brain gets stuck in a fight-or-flight loop?” 🚨

It doesn’t mean the person is consciously scared.

That is the first misunderstanding.

A patient may say, quite accurately:
“I’m not anxious. I’m not afraid.”
And they may be right.

But arousal dysfunction is not always conscious fear.

At a brain-body level, sustained illness ( mediated by multiple biological mechanisms ) can create allostatic load repeated attempts by the body to maintain stability under stress.

Over time, the system shifts into a new allostatic state: higher baseline arousal, altered autonomic tone, disrupted sleep, interoceptive noise, inflammatory signalling, vascular changes, and reduced confidence in bodily prediction.

The last part is important .

So the brain’s state has shifted to
“I cannot predict this body reliably.”

That uncertainty itself drives arousal.

When internal signals become unpredictable : dizziness, tachycardia, fatigue, PEM, pain, breathlessness, weakness : the brain has to keep monitoring.

That’s interoception

That is metabolically expensive.

The prefrontal cortex, which normally helps with flexible thinking, planning, inhibition and contextualising threat, becomes less efficient under sustained arousal.

Noradrenergic systems, particularly alpha-1 mediated arousal under high stress states, can shift the brain away from flexible prefrontal regulation towards more reflexive, rigid, defensive action.

So the brain selects the lowest-cost action under uncertainty.

In predictive processing terms, the loop is this:
1/ The body produces noisy or threatening interoceptive signals.

2/ The brain predicts high cost or danger.

3/ Attention narrows onto the body.

4/ Arousal increases.

5/ Prefrontal flexibility reduces.

6/ Action becomes avoidance, rest, guarding or withdrawal.

7/ Short-term prediction error reduces.

8/ The brain learns: this was the safest policy.

9/ automatised over time

That is the loop.

Not “pseudoscience”.

A brain-body system under allostatic load can become organised around threat minimisation and cost reduction.

[Mo Perry @MoMoPerry]

@AlanLevinovitz I approvingly quote-tweeted your article and they’re coming for me (again) too. It’s like waking sleeper cells of killer bees. Horrible. Thank you again for your work and your courage in sharing it (bizarre that courage should be required but here we are).